Percy supposed that Frank looked cute, the same way a puppy did. He felt the urge to pat Frank's head affectionately, but thought that Frank might find the gesture offensive.
"Hey Frank, nice to meet you," Percy said, instead extending his hand. Frank took his hand and shook it warmly.
"You said you would be here for 2 years, but Mr. D said that you would stay here for the next 3 years during dinner last week," Frank commented casually. Percy was surprised that Frank would remember him casually mentioning about staying in camp for the next 2 years, but shrugged it off. The kids might be a champion at memorizing words or something.
"Yeah, 3 years is my term, but I read up somewhere that you get to end your term early if you are on good behaviour, Right?" Frank nodded. "So hopefully, I'll only stay for 2 years." Percy explained.
"Good. I only have about 6 months more to go," Frank said, smiling slightly. Percy wondered what he had done to end up in camp. He seemed like such a nice and gentle guy. But then again, looks were deceiving. Maybe the kid was a professional assassin or something.
Suddenly, Frank's expression tensed. "We're going to be late, hurry," he said, then dragged Percy out of the cabin where they had been talking and out into the scorching hot sun. Percy stumbled slightly as he tried to keep up with Frank, who started running towards a orange building some where off to the south of the cabins.
"Sorry we're late," Frank gasped as he burst through the door, followed closely by Percy. His eyes widened as he saw the building was a single classroom with 35 chairs and tables, 31 of which were occupied by their cabin-mates. An annoyed Mr. D stood at the front, tapping his foot impatiently.
"Stay after this and write a poem on how being late is rude and submit it to me before dinner, Hank and Perry! It'd better rhyme!" he barked and stormed out of the room, not bothering to close the door. "And ask your loser friends about what you missed!"
Percy looked at Frank in bewilderment and Frank shrugged, closing the door properly after Mr D. "He's always like that," he explained nonchalantly. 'He once made me do 30 push-ups for sneezing too loudly in class. A poem is nothing. He must have been in a good mood today, or we would have had to dig a hole or something. Well, an extra one at least."
"An extra hole? What about the first?" Percy asked in confusion.
"Mr. D didn't tell you? I guess you'll find out tomorrow," Frank replied.
"OK then…" Percy said, sitting down at a table near the corner of the classroom. Frank took the seat in front of him.
The door opened and a man in a wheelchair pushed himself into the room. The noisy class suddenly became silent and the man wheeled himself to the front of the room.
"Good afternoon, class." He said quietly once his wheelchair was positioned in front of the class.
"Good afternoon…" Percy trailed off as the rest of the class greeted the man. The man's eyes swept around the class, and landed on Percy.
"Perseus! Welcome to Texas Youth Reformation Camp! I'm Chiron Brunner. You may call me just Chiron," He said, smiling warmly at Percy. Percy had a feeling that if Chiron was not wheel-chair bound, he would have gone to Percy's desk to shake his hand.
"Good afternoon, Chiron," Percy said bowing awkwardly in an attempt to at least appear polite to the man. Chiron just laughed and waved for him to sit down.
"I assume you do not have any stationery?" Chiron asked. Percy shook his head and Chiron nodded. He pushed the wheel-chair to the teacher's table in the corner and rummaged through one of drawers of the table to produce a brown pencil case, and passed it down the rows to Percy. It was a simple pencil case with the words Texas Youth Reformation Camp written in bold with the words A Better Tomorrow in neat letters underneath. Percy opened the pencil case and saw that it contained some standard stationery – two unsharpened 2B pencils, a sharpener, an eraser, a ruler, a black pen and a tube of correction fluid.
"Thank you," Percy said in relief. He quickly walked to the dustbin at the corner of the classroom and proceeded to sharpen his pencils. Chiron waited for Percy to return to his seat, then clapped his hands together.
"Class, please welcome Perseus! Perseus, would you like to introduce yourself?" Chiron asked. Percy inwardly groaned as he heard Chiron calling him Perseus. It made him sound like such a no-nonsense, strict rule-follower. He stood up from his seat and waved a little to everyone.
"Hi, I'm Perseus, but really, please, just call me Percy. Perseus is too long. I like eating blue jellybeans, and really, just blue things in general. They just taste better than… Well regular coloured food, I suppose. Yeah. Well nice to meet all of you. I also like to play basket ball. That's pretty much all… Yeah," Percy said, waving his hands about a bit, then proceeded to sit down.
"That's great!" Chiron said encouraging. "Anyone has any questions for Perseus, ah, sorry, Percy?" he asked, looking around the class expectantly.
"What would you like to do in your lifetime? Like what's your dream job?" someone asked.
Percy hesitated slightly at the question. He had no clear ambition, although he was 17. He understood that he should be thinking more on this issue, but he just wasn't sure . But saying that he had no ambition made him sound like he was a slacking teenager with a bad attitude, something that he did not want Chiron to think.
So he said the first job that came to mind.
"When I was younger I had always wanted to be a forensic scientist for the FBI but since any careers in that field are probably non-existent for me now, marine biology sounds good. Or something to do with science."
"How do you make this thing rhyme?" Percy asked Frank as they sat in the classroom after lesson had ended. There was a half hour of free time before dinner at 5:30pm. While most of his cabin-mates had gone to do whatever floated their boats, Percy and Frank had to stay behind to complete their poem in the half hour before dinner time started. They had decided to do it together as it was more efficient, and Percy was glad that they had teamed up. Frank turned out to be a master in the area of literature. Percy suspected that if they were ranked according to their degrees of accomplishment at poetry, he would be at amateur level and Frank would be Zen master.
So far, the had gotten:
The sun shines high above us,
And youth's elixir fills our veins.
Hurry, we should, to not be late,
It's a rule that requires not being said.
It's terrible, the sin we've committed.
"What rhymes with committed?" Percy wondered aloud. "Mittens? Kittens? Dirt?"
"Omitted," Frank said, looking at the clock on the wall. They still had about 20 minutes before dinner. "We could write 'It can't be omitted', then continue with 'So change we would, to avoid,' and 'Getting our reputations soiled'. Or something. What do you think, Percy?"
"I think it's great," Percy said, grinning lazily. One good thing about working with Frank was: Frank was Asian, lord of the books. With his superior brain doing all the thinking, all Percy needed to do was occasionally nod and give his opinion, and Frank would produce a masterpiece with both their names on it, even though Percy had hardly done anything.
"I think it isn't good at all," Frank said, contorting his face into a frown. "It's not really relevant, and the rhythm is kind of broken for the first two lines. The flow is bad. I think we should re-write it."
"What?" Percy gasped in shock. "It's great! The 'Hurry, we should, to not be late', and 'It's a rule that requires not being said' part is beautiful! Really!"
Frank laughed softly. "Let me recite to you something." He closed his eyes and took a calming breath.
Under the ocean where water falls
over the decks and tilted walls
where the sea come knocking at the great ship's door,
the band still plays
to the drum of the waves,
to the drum of the waves.
Down in the indigo depths of the sea
the white shark waltzes gracefully
down the water stairways, across the ballroom floor
where the cold shoals flow
and ghost dancers go,
ghost dancers go.
Their dresses are frayed, their shoes are lost.
their jewels and beads and bones are tossed
into the sand, all turned to stone,
as they sing in the sea
eternally,
eternally.
Currents comb their long loose hair,
dancers sway forever where
the bright fish nibble their glittering bones,
till they fall asleep
in the shivering deep,
in the shivering deep.
Frank watched as Percy's expression became thoughtful and awe-struck, and smiled slightly.
"Do you still think our poem is good?"
And that is the last original chapter. The rest will be from me and not Rainbow and Sunshine. See you guys later.
-R